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Strap on your bicycle helmets, because Robot Wars is the Greatest Movie EVER!

Click on the poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring special guest host Andrew from Collection DX and The Veef Show.

Review in a Nutshell: A straight-to-video science fiction film with a simple premise and a shoe-string budget, Robot Wars does a lot with very little. The stop-motion animation and laser effects are especially good.

The recent Beast Wars Sourcebook by IDW actually mentions the Bat/Gator forms. Apparently they were the computer’s first choices for forms Optimus and Megatron were to change into. Seems both hated the idea and adapted the forms we know and love (or at least know)

Ah, Full Moon Entertainment. So many Greatest Movie EVER’s, so few quality DVD realeases.

Though that seems to be changing…sort of. Used to be you would need to shell out 100+ dollars for a pan&scan VHS release of any of FME’s films, now you can spend 20-120 dollars for DVD collections of dubious quality.

I am going to have to dig around to see if I can find a cheap copy of the Trancers collection, even though it’s p&s.

As for Beast Wars, I have very fond memories of the series, even though I found the CGI to be bad even by the standards of the time. Viewing some episodes again a few months ago I was struck by how, even though the writing is as strong as ever, the bad CGI is completely unwatchable now.

Beast Machines though was unwatchable on every level. Beast Wars at least had great writing to help overcome the bad visuals, Beast Machine’s writing never even rose above adequate.

I know nothing about Robot Wars, so thanks for this podcast to bringing my attention to it. I do know about 2 things

1) Robot Jox. I guess I didn’t stick around long enough for live action mecha battlin’

2) Beast Wars/Beast Machines were the point for the old fogies to jump off and/or shake their fists at things not being the same. I don’t begrudge them too much, because if you like the techno part of the techno-organic more than the organic, the Beast era is too meaty. Also, there’s transformer love and plant people, and all this craziness. Plus, Beast Machines is kinda drab looking, a contrast to not only classic Transformers but also Beast Wars.